Bay of Plenty: Surfing, Sailing, and lots of Sulfur

Two weekends ago (yes, I'm a little behind on blogging!) I headed northeast to the Bay of Plenty.   One reason was to take some windsurfing and sailing lessons I purchased online.   Another was to see my new American pal Amanda in Rotorua!

Bay of Plenty area is about a 4-5 hour drive northeast of Hawera.   Saturday morning was QUITE foggy and I attempted to climb Mount Maunganui.  On a clear day it may look like this: 

(kudos to nzmission.com for the picture!)

On the morning of my visit and hike, it looked like this:

So, as you can imagine, the view from the top was.... cloudy.  :(

I spent the rest of the morning doing some Christmas retail therapy in a town called Te Puke.  

Keeping in the spirit of food-driven towns, Te Puke is the Kiwifruit Capital of the WORLD!    Aw yeah.   So of course they have a HUGE tourist trap store full of kiwifruit parephenalia, including a gigantic climbable Kiwi photo op in the parking lot.

The afternoon it cleared up a bit, perfect conditions actually for my sailing and windsurfing lessons on the bay in a town called Tauranga.  I took some time before my lessons to play in the water and see some sealife...

What is the proper term for a group of snails? A school?  A slurry?

Due to the non-waterproofness of my camera, I have no shots of me windsurfing, but it was crazy fun!  I recommend you try it sometime.   MUCH easier than surfing.  You WILL get up on your first lesson!   Sailing was fun, too.  The wind really picked up by late afternoon and we were really cruising!

Me and my dinghy for the afternoon :)

Saturday night I drove an hour south of Tauranga to visit my new American friend Amanda!   We met on the Bay of Islands cruise 2 months ago, and she invited me to see the awesomeness of her town.  She lives in Rotorua, a town of about 60,000 (big city for my small-town self these days!).  Rotorua is known for its geothermal activity.   The town is FULL of neato thermal pools, geothermal vents, and bubbling mud pools.  It's only downside is the nasty rotten-egg smell, from all the hydrogen sulfide emissions.  You do get used to it after a while, though. :)

Here's some pics of a public park in the middle of town.  Steam and mud bubbles everywhere!

Sunday we went to the "Thermal Wonderland" known as Wai-o-Tapu (meaning "Sacred Waters" in Maori).  It cost a few bucks to get in, but SO worth it! 

First we saw Lady Knox Geyser.   Kind of disappointing that they have to dump a soap material in it everyday, but then the mix of the soap plus natural hot/cold chambers inside make it erupt for over an hour!   Mini Old Faithful, I guess.

The ground beneath the park is a system of streams which are heated by magma left over from earlier volcanic eruptions.   This super hot water (300deg Celsius!) absorbs minerals out of the rocks and moves up to the surface as steam, then deposits the minerals on the rocks on the ground, creating beautiful colors of green (ferrous salts), orange (antimony), purple (manganese), white (silica), yellow (stinky sulfur), and red (iron oxide).  

No touching!  Very hot stuff :)

These are called Bridal Veil Falls.   No active water falling here, but beautiful formations!

This is called Frying Pan flat.   Very deep, wide craters form as the acidic steam rises and dissolves the ground above, ultimately causing it to collapse.   I love the reflection here!

Here's another steamy crater.

Here is Sulfur Cave.  As hot sulfur gases rose, they deposited as the yellow stuff on the inner part of the cave.   Yay for chemistry!

One of my favorite formations was Champagne Pool, the largest spring in the area.   It was formed 700 years ago by a thermal eruption.  This pool contains gold, silver, mercury, sulfur, arsenic, thalium, and antimony!!

Check out the crazy colors!

It's named "Champagne Pool" because of its bubbles!   Here's a closeup of the carbon dioxide bubbling to the surface.  Incredible!

Probably the most insane crater is Devil's Bath.    When the excess water of the Champagne Pool mixes with sulfur and ferrous salts, it turns into THIS!

Holy Bright yellow green!   Can we say "pool of slime"?   Craziness.   The color varies between green and yellow depening on how much reflected light and cloud cover is above.  Amazing!

Then Amanda took me to the mud baths.  No, these weren't baths to play in.  They were full of super hot bubbling mud!    I got a few photos of the bubbles in action.

Glub-glub-glub!

 PLOP!

 BLUB!

It honestly sounded like a witch's bubbly brew!    Maybe I should ask Santa for a camera with video capabilities so I can get this all on film with sound to post on my blog!

After all this mindblowing geothermalchemical amazingness, Amanda took me to some secret roadside thermal pools that you could sit and soak in!  So basically, pull over on the side of the road, change into swimsuit, tiptoe down the bank, and wade into a warm stream!   Very awesome.  And free!

Despite its stinky smell, Rotorua is a pretty amazing place.   And it was fabulous to hang out with another American chick and share stories on what we miss from the good ol' US of A....

Until next time, cheers from the town you smell before you see!